JtR's Accent........

[Jane Coram]

Hi Adam,

I'd be very interested to know why you think that JtR couldn't have come from the poorest class of person. Not a trick question, I'm just curious.

Just to keep it on topic - I'm not sure that the clothes a person was wearing has a great deal to do with their accents or even their station in life.

For instance, when Jack London was researching People of the Abyss, he went and bought a load of second hand clothes so that he could fit in, and it seems he did fit in pretty well, at least well enough to con the casual ward superintendent that he was a down and out. So it's more than likely that anyone who wanted to go slumming, that came from a rich background, could do the same and pass for your average East End Joe.

There were a lot of self made men in the area at the time, like McCarthy, and Coates, and I'm sure when they went out anywhere they were pretty well togged up in decent clothes, but it's fairly certain they still had pretty strong accents of one sort or another, which you would usually associate with the lower classes.

Someone could have a shabby genteel appearance and be as common as muck or sound like Lord Snooty, so I'm not sure we can match accents with appearance to come up with anything definitive.

Interesting thread though.

Much love

Janie

xxxx

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
When considering the wording of two witnesses that recalled events , one could assume that the phrase 'You would say anything but your prayers', and 'You will be alright for what I have told you', may well have been spoken by the same man.
Both were allegedly spoken by well dressed types, and the lead word 'You' addresses the person at a personal level.
Obviously this would depend on the correct wording being passed on by the witnesses.
But both quotes would make the victims unsuspecting of what was to happen.
Regards Richard.

[Adam Went]

Hey Jane,

Some interesting thoughts! There's several reasons why I personally think Jack didn't come from the poorest of the poor, but for just a few examples:

1.) As already mentioned, the way of his speaking and dressing.

2.) The poorest of the poor (and when I say that, I'm referring to costermongers, street-sellers, casual workers, dock labourers, and so on) generally stayed in lodging-houses or shared accomodation, something which would have surely raised suspicion if the man was out at the time and date of every murder (plus the fact that he wouldn't have been able to get back into the lodging house at a certain hour - and in any case, with human organs? Probably not...and certainly he wouldn't want to be walking the streets with them all night.)

3.) The labouring and street-selling class generally knew each other very well, as they saw each other on a regular basis in their travels (by the way, this isn't an assumption, it comes from the records of social researchers like Henry Mayhew who spent years during the Victorian era studying this type of thing) - so he would constantly have been running the risk of running into somebody who knew him on the streets. Especially in the case of Annie Chapman, at the time the market was getting busy just minutes away....

4.) We can be fairly sure the killer had some sort of medical knowledge - what degree is debatable, but he did have atleast some. So medical knowledge means an education of some sort, which in turn means he was most likely literate. Now according to some statistics I've seen in the past, as much as 39 out of every 40 of the poorest class were completely illiterate, and/or had never attended school. Which means that if Jack came from this group, he might have had as little as a 2 or 3 % chance of being literate - a problem, if you happen to believe in any of the Ripper communications.

Obviously none of these points are solid evidence, but I think it's a reasonable assumption that Jack was not from the poorest class. The idea that he might have been quite well off at one time and had now fallen on hard times, and was generally just a bit annoyed at society, is a pretty good one.

Hope that answers your question lol.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Jane Coram]

Hi Adam,

Brilliant thanks. I was just curious. I like to know how people reach their conclusions, because the only way to pick up information is to see how other people reason things out!

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a reasonable assumption that he wasn't from the very poorest classes, because there are always provisos, and it's never safe to assume anything in JtR's case, but there are some good points there nevertheless.

Much love

Jane

xxxx

[Garry Wroe]

The class of victims is not so important though because they were the easiest targets, regardless of what class JTR himself came from.

On the contrary, Adam. The sadosexual serialist tends to target those with whom he comes into everyday noncriminal contact. Not only are these the individuals with whom he feels most confident and comfortable, but they are to be found in the type of locations which accord him a degree of ‘invisibility’. As they say, if you want to conceal a grain of sand, look for a beach.

There's several reasons why I personally think Jack didn't come from the poorest of the poor, but for just a few examples:

1.) As already mentioned, the way of his speaking and dressing.

The most reliable sighting of the Ripper, I would suggest, Adam, was that of Lawende. The man he observed standing with Kate Eddowes, however, was not heard to speak and was dressed in distinctly lower working-class garb.

2.) The poorest of the poor (and when I say that, I'm referring to costermongers, street-sellers, casual workers, dock labourers, and so on) generally stayed in lodging-houses or shared accomodation, something which would have surely raised suspicion if the man was out at the time and date of every murder (plus the fact that he wouldn't have been able to get back into the lodging house at a certain hour - and in any case, with human organs? Probably not...and certainly he wouldn't want to be walking the streets with them all night.)

This topic has been explored on a number of threads, Adam, so I won’t labour the point here. Suffice to say, though, that many late-Victorian East Enders worked what in the modern age would be construed as antisocial shift patterns. Consequently, most lodging houses absorbed and disgorged a steady stream of patrons at all hours of the night and day. As for the issue of human organs, patrons frequently cooked offal in lodging house kitchens, so the sight of someone producing a kidney or suchlike from a pocket was hardly a noteworthy occurrence.

4.) We can be fairly sure the killer had some sort of medical knowledge - what degree is debatable, but he did have atleast some. So medical knowledge means an education of some sort, which in turn means he was most likely literate. Now according to some statistics I've seen in the past, as much as 39 out of every 40 of the poorest class were completely illiterate, and/or had never attended school. Which means that if Jack came from this group, he might have had as little as a 2 or 3 % chance of being literate - a problem, if you happen to believe in any of the Ripper communications.

Personally, Adam, I see nothing in the Ripper series to suggest a killer possessed of medical knowledge. This is an area I explored in some depth in my book. Since it’s available here on site, you might care to have a look at it.

Likewise, I’m unsure as to the source of your statistics, but my recollection of the various contemporaneous surveys is an illiteracy rate of something like six percent. Remember that the 1870 Elementary Education Act made the schooling of five to twelve year olds a statutory requirement. As such, the illiteracy rate of eighteen year olds and younger at the time of the Whitechapel Murders must have been somewhere close to zero. This alone, I would suggest, would render a two or three percent literacy rate as statistically impossible.

All the best.

Garry Wroe.

[Adam Went]

Hi Jane and Garry,

Jane:

No problem. I guess what it all comes down to is how each individual reads the available evidence and what conclusions can be gained from it. Do you have a view on the subject of Jack's class personally? Have I converted you?

Garry:

On the contrary, Adam. The sadosexual serialist tends to target those with whom he comes into everyday noncriminal contact. Not only are these the individuals with whom he feels most confident and comfortable, but they are to be found in the type of locations which accord him a degree of ‘invisibility’. As they say, if you want to conceal a grain of sand, look for a beach.

I think you would find, Garry, that a huge percentage of the women walking the streets of the East End in the early hours of the morning, especially when wet, were soliciting. At the very least, homeless. Desperate, penniless, aging prostitutes aren't going to be particularly difficult to persuade, plus in some cases they had been drinking, and those factors combined are what makes them easy targets.

The most reliable sighting of the Ripper, I would suggest, Adam, was that of Lawende. The man he observed standing with Kate Eddowes, however, was not heard to speak and was dressed in distinctly lower working-class garb.

Lawende stated that the man he saw had the "appearance of a sailor", which is really neither here nor there. Let me specify - I am not saying that Jack was a wealthy man, I'm not even saying that he was middle-class, but my point is that there's a good case to be made for his not belonging to the very poorest of the classes. That's all.

Suffice to say, though, that many late-Victorian East Enders worked what in the modern age would be construed as antisocial shift patterns. Consequently, most lodging houses absorbed and disgorged a steady stream of patrons at all hours of the night and day. As for the issue of human organs, patrons frequently cooked offal in lodging house kitchens, so the sight of someone producing a kidney or suchlike from a pocket was hardly a noteworthy occurrence.

Yes, indeed they did, and some of the poorest workers would do 12-14 hours per day, or more. Including weekends on occasion. Now no poor street seller who was going to be working by 5 AM is going to be out on the streets at 2 or 3 AM killing people. Annie Chapman particularly, at 5.30 AM when the market had already started just up the road. That all the canonical victims were killed on holidays or weekends is a fair indication that Jack was occupied during the week, probably working - a man who was slightly better off could choose not to work holidays or weekends, however - a luxury which your lowest classes could not afford.

As for cooking, I would imagine that having a good old fry-up at 3 AM, of a kidney, when it was all over the papers the next day about the murder(s), would have raised a few eyebrows.

Personally, Adam, I see nothing in the Ripper series to suggest a killer possessed of medical knowledge. This is an area I explored in some depth in my book. Since it’s available here on site, you might care to have a look at it.

When considering the medical knowledge of JTR, I think the best way to think about it is to compare it to your own level of medical knowledge. Now, my mother has been a nurse all her life, and studying first aid was compulsory when I was at school - so I do believe I know a bit about medicine and the human body - not a lot, but a bit. However, there is no possible way that I would be able to do what JTR did, even in a fully lit mortuary with proper instruments and an instruction book next to me - certainly not within any reasonable period of time. We've got to remember here that these murders and mutilations were down incredibly swiftly and discreetly, in near pitch black darkness and with the constant risk of being caught. As I said, compare it to your own medical knowledge - there's no reason to think Jack was any different. Furthermore, there was a concensus even at the time that the killer was possessed of atleast some medical knowledge.

Likewise, I’m unsure as to the source of your statistics, but my recollection of the various contemporaneous surveys is an illiteracy rate of something like six percent. Remember that the 1870 Elementary Education Act made the schooling of five to twelve year olds a statutory requirement. As such, the illiteracy rate of eighteen year olds and younger at the time of the Whitechapel Murders must have been somewhere close to zero. This alone, I would suggest, would render a two or three percent literacy rate as statistically impossible.

As I mentioned, my source is Henry Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor". The illiteracy rate depends entirely on what group of people you're talking about. Some could read but not write, and vice versa, and they had varying amounts of literacy. However, many young people were brought up to a life on the streets and knew nothing more. Admittedly, Mayhew's studies were carried out in the 1850's, and may be slightly outdated when considering them against JTR's time, but then Jack was probably a young child when those studies were done, and Mayhew covers people of all ages, from the youngest child to 70 and 80 year olds.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

I thought of just now about accents.

The newspapers of the day often corrected reported speech to a greater or lesser extent.

When you read the witness testimony it often sounds stilted and unnatural. That's almost certainly because the newspaper had neutralized the accent to confirm to standard English as much as they could.

There is no question that most of the witnesses would have had fairly strong accents of one sort or another, but in the reports a lot of them come out sounding rather odd, because that wasn't actually what they said in real terms. It would sound fine spoken by a Cockney, but rendered in Queen's English, sounds rather peculiar.

This wasn't always the case, there are instances of them rendering it as it was originally said, but we can't say which are which for certain.

For instance, we have no way of knowing if the man standing outside 29 Hanbury Street actually said "Will You?" or "Will Yer?" The newspapers could well have corrected his pronunciation for him.

You couldn't trust any bugger in those days.

Hugs

Jane

xxxx

[GregBaron]

Phonics........

Well Jane, I would expect the written word to be standardized ..
no big deal there....official documents typically won't do phonetic
dialogue....that's more the realm of the novelist....but I think
if we did know JtR's accent it would obviously narrow the search..
If no accent is mentioned the assumption would be..'he talks just
like me' which is perhaps what some witnesses thought therefore they didn't
mention it......this would mean the typical East Londoner....if one
said 'Oh, he sounded like an American' that would be quite a clue..
Again, we don't know if anyone saw or heard JtR but if any of the
few statements were actually him including the 'prayers' statement
before Stride I would think his manner of speaking would be important.
I haven't read transcripts so I don't know if this question was ever
asked? But for something like a low 'will you' an accent may not be
determinable...If you think about the suspects I would expect Maybrick
to talk differently than Kosminski who would talk differently than
Tumblety who would talk differently than Sickert etc....

And then there's the clothing...which suspects would roam around in
'shabby genteel' or sailor clothes? Druitt or Tumblety probably wouldn't
unless they dressed for murder nights. Also, I guess we are assuming
JtR didn't disguise his voice. Oh no, dressed for murder nights and
disguised accents, that sounds like another thread......


Greg

[Jane Coram]

Hi Adam,

No, sorry, you haven't converted me. I don't have a clue what class Jack came from. He could have been anyone from the Archbishop of Canterbury, to One Eyed Pete from Peckham for all I know. I don't rule out that he could have come from the very poorest level of society though, for a few reasons.I'm not saying I think he was, but I can't really see any solid reason why he couldn't have been!

I do actually agree with a lot of your points anyway -- that the women were in fact easy targets and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most of the younger and more attractive prostitutes had vacated the streets by that time, and those that were left were the ones that were the left-overs. No disrespect intended to them, but those poor souls were made-to-measure victims.

The question of whether or not Jack was literate is an interesting one. The problem is there are so many variables that I don't think it's possible to risk any kind of guess as to whether or not he was educated and to what level, even if he was destitute at the time of the murders.

I think you're are right in saying that it would depend a fair bit on his age and also what his earlier life was like to some extent though.

Polly Nichols was in her forties and she could read and write reasonably well, and although her parents were fairly average working people, by 1888 Polly was about as destitute as they come. So really JtR might have come from the same sort of average working class background and fallen on hard times later on. Even if he was completely desitute as a child, there were still ways to be educated as early as the 1850s.

The Ragged School in George Yard for instance, was started up around 1858, and the kids that went there were literally tantamount to half-starved little animals. There were Sunday Schools that taught literacy as well.

All in all, I'm not sure we can even hazard a guess at whether JtR was literate or otherwise. That's even supposing he wrote any letters. That sort of covers the medical knowledge as well really, because there were plenty of libraries where he could have picked up the informatio. That's even before you get into things like him working as a slaughterman etc.,.

Bearing in mind that it's practically impossible to be certain about anything in this case, it's not surprising that we find so much to talk about.

Much love

Jane

xxx

[Jane Coram]

Hi Gary,

(I'll get some work done in a minute. )

If no accent is mentioned the assumption would be..'he talks just
like me' which is perhaps what some witnesses thought therefore they didn't
mention it......this would mean the typical East Londoner....if one
said 'Oh, he sounded like an American' that would be quite a clue..

That's a good point, but still leaves us beset with problems, because as with everything else there are so many variables. I think it would be a case of judging each particular incident on its own merit. I was thinking more of newspaper reports than official documents, as in many instances they are all we've got to rely on anyway. You're quite right, in the above case though it would be a bit of a give-away!

I think that if anyone wanted to follow up on this idea, it would be a case of going through all of the newspaper reports to compare them and examine each witness statement separately. The newspaper reports do vary slightly (and in some cases considerably) from one to the other, including the reported speech, which might show up some interesting results.

And of course, we still can't say for certain if anyone ever saw or heard JtR anyway!

Hugs

Janie

[Rubyretro]

Hi Adam -yes, I agree with most of Jane's assessment :

Regarding whether Jack could have been lower class and literate : my great grandmother was one of 13 children brought over from Ireland by their widowed father and virtually abandoned in Mile End, at this time. She attended the Ragged School in Mile End, and family letters (for which I have used copies for découpage art) show her to be rather more literate than
some university students today !! So you just can't tell anything about Jack
from whether he was literate or not (which we actually don't know for sure, although I think that he was...)

As for his knowledge of anatomy-in-the dark : I have been a sheep farmer in my life, and have had to deal with various dead animals; I have cut them up to feed to my dogs before now. I love cooking and have lived in rural France,
and I have cut up rabbits, hares, boar, deer, sheep in the past. I'm pretty confident that, even in the dark, I coud lay my hands pretty quickly on the various organs (even if the stomach and intestines were intact) and not be too sqeamish. I think that the anatomy of any mammal is similar to a human,
although not close enough for Jack to have the 'skill of a surgeon'.

[caz]

Hi All,

At the most basic level, if a prospective victim - let's use Kate as an example - approached Jack late at night and at the height of the scare, it would presumably be because he looked as though he had at least the means to pay for a coffee or baked potato. Kate would have been parched, hungry and penniless when leaving the police station.

Equally, if Jack was the one who did the approaching, he could hardly have expected much success - again, after the first or second of his horrific murders - if he didn't have a pot to pi** in, and it showed.

I would have thought, for him to get away with it as many times as he did, and to have the will to do so, that he was not engaged in his own daily fight for survival (because that tends to concentrate the mind away from idle thoughts about mutilating strangers for the hell of it); he would have been reasonably familiar with how his ideal victim operated (in safer times) and what she expected of her punters; that he would have had the necessary coins on him to show her, if asked; and that he therefore knew well enough how to earn, borrow or steal his way to a half decent living while wearing his serial offender hat.

The successful criminal usually does nicely thank you.

No rich man, but no struggling pauper either - IMHO.

Love,

Caz
X

[Marc]

As for his knowledge of anatomy-in-the dark : I have been a sheep farmer in my life, and have had to deal with various dead animals; I have cut them up to feed to my dogs before now. I love cooking and have lived in rural France,
and I have cut up rabbits, hares, boar, deer, sheep in the past. I'm pretty confident that, even in the dark, I coud lay my hands pretty quickly on the various organs (even if the stomach and intestines were intact) and not be too sqeamish.

Hi Ruby, while reading your post, it stroke me that many more people were then accustomed to butcher animals than we are today, because of their rural backgrounds. This is something that might be taken into account with JtR killings, even if some people (Dc. Philipps ?) hinted that observed mutilations required anatomical skills.
Would have Philipp's more 'upper class' backgrounds led him to ignore the 'rural background' factor ?

Beside, when looking at Whitechapel period maps, the number of various slaugtherhouses in the area is simply amazing (IMHO).
If JtR was an 'insider' to Whitechapel, the odds he could be or could have been a slaugtherman/butcher or closely related to one, are not especially high.
Not the least bit of hard evidence on my side of course, but I feel this guy was definitely swift to kill and then cut various organs with a knife...like a professional could be ?

[Fleetwood Mac]

I know we have few instances of anyone hearing JtR....we have the
famous 'will you?' question, the 'Lipski' shout out and perhaps some
quiet talking heard by Mrs. Long and/or Lawende? Miller's court? The
'No' is presumably Annie Chapman seconds before her unfortunate demise..
....What I'm wondering is, did any of the witness interrogations mention
anything about the accent of what may have been JtR? Is a 'will you' heard
clearly, enough to distinguish an accent? I would think so. Certainly a Tumblety
would sound different than an East Ender or an Irishman or a recently immigrated Polish Jew!
Again, I know few words were ever heard but did anyone ever offer or were they asked this question? Curious...

Question 2 involves one of my favorite phrases 'Shabby Genteel'. My
take on this meaning is of a person dressed fairly well, with gentlemanly or
just short of gentelmanly attire but in a somewhat worn, perhaps slightly
ragged, mildly dirty state. Maybe the dress of someone 'putting on airs'
or trying to appear a bit above their station. My take. Do you all agree with this assessment?



Greg

On the clothing......I think the consensus is decent clothes that have seen better days. Interesting turn of phrase for a resident of Whitechapel though......not sure they would be aware of the phrase 'shabby genteel'...anyone else think this is contrived?

As for the accent.....it's a fair point.....people felt it necessary to say 'he looked like a foreigner'...but the suspects' voice passed by without a great deal of interest......unless of course it was how he sounded that influenced the word 'genteel'....power of suggestion and all that. Or....it was a familiar accent..hence nothing of note to report.

In terms of why he killed prostitutes in Whitechapel......I suppose you could argue that they afforded opportunity....but then why Whitechapel?....there were prostitutes knocking around in other areas. He must have been familiar with the area....but not necessarily lived in the area. I'd take a guess that he worked around that area rather than lived in that area.....just a hunch based on knowing your patch but giving yourself a bit of breathing space if spotted. Seeems reasonable to me.

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Jane:

Well I do agree with you in some of your points, but I also believe that for too long, researchers have simply looked at the case in the sense of "Who did it?" rather than "Who didn't do it?". We could learn a lot and narrow down the suspect field considerably by simply using the process of elimination, and a lot of the things we could eliminate people by are quite common sense. For example, some of them would be:

1.) He could speak English
2.) He was not physically disabled (i.e. missing limbs, etc)
3.) He lived in the East End
4.) He was not younger than 20 and not older than 50

And there you go, in 4 basic points, we've eliminated hundreds of thousands of potential suspects.

You mentioned that Polly Nichols was literate, which is a fair point, but then on the other side of that, MJK was not. It just depends on the person and the type of upbringing they had, but not many of the poorest class could read or write well, if at all. They had no need to - they worked on the streets and made their living there, with no need for the use, although from the accounts I've read, those who couldn't read or write wished that they could, and those who could read or write said it had been of little good to them.

Ruby:

Butcher or slaughterman is a strong possibility, but again, it runs the risk of being identified by fellow butchers and people who know you from the area, especially.

Everybody here knows, whether they want to admit it or not, that when you pull a sickie from work or back in the days of school, the number one rule is to not show your face anywhere remotely near the area where your colleagues are, as there's always the risk you will get spotted out and about when you're supposed to be too ill to be doing work, and then of course you find yourself in some trouble. Well, that's no different to JTR.....only that his motives were somewhat more sinister. A semi-intelligent lower class man (and they were intelligent and shrewd in some areas, even if they were illiterate), would have realised this before he went on a killing spree, that his colleagues might well spot him and ask questions later on.

On the other hand, somebody who doesn't belong to that class....perhaps somebody who works in a different area or works for himself, and is a bit of a loner, with few or no friends in the area, isn't going to be pulled up as easily, is he?

Caz:

No rich man, but no struggling pauper either - IMHO.

EXACTLY! THANK YOU!

Cheers,
Adam.